Devil's Acre

The Devil's Acre was a notorious slum near Westminster Abbey in Westminster, London that existed during the Victorian era. The slum had its origins in the Middle Ages, during which the abbey's monks offered a safe haven to suspected criminals and debtors next to the western gate of the abbey, which became known as "the Sanctuary". During the mid-18th century, the gardens and courtyards were built over and replaced by ill-paved and ill-maintained streets, and the dwellings were cheaply made, lacked ventilation, had poor lighting, and had no drainage or sanitation facilities. By the 19th century, the area was the center of poverty, vice, and crime in London, and Charles Dickens gave the area its infamous name, "the Devil's Acre", in Household Words in 1850. During the 1850s and 1860s, streets and philanthrophic housing developments were built with the goal of removing the area's blot upon London, and the establishment of a sewer system drained the marshy water from the acre and made the land desirable to real estate developers. Residents would be displaced into newly-built social housing during the 1870s, clearing the slum.